


After the Dust

by aeli_kindara



Series: Bird-Naming [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Gen, M/M, POV Steve Rogers, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-09
Updated: 2018-12-09
Packaged: 2019-09-14 14:21:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16914495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aeli_kindara/pseuds/aeli_kindara
Summary: The Avengers find each other in the silence Bucky leaves behind.(The first day. Takes place immediately post-IW; shares continuity with my Bird-Naming series but functions as a standalone.)





	After the Dust

**Author's Note:**

> So, I didn't warn for Major Character Death, 'cause uh, this _is_ an Infinity War coda, but yeah. Obviously. That.
> 
> This has been languishing since the summer in the realm of projects I mean to get back to, and I've been thinking of it as a prologue to a longer, chaptered fic. But, with the release of the new _Avengers: Endgame_ trailer, it seemed like a good moment to put it out in the light of day. And hopefully I will get around to the subsequent story soon, too!
> 
> Anyway, in case none of this hurts enough, here, have an Emily Dickinson poem:
> 
> _After great pain, a formal feeling comes -  
>  The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs -  
> The stiff Heart questions ‘was it He, that bore,’  
> And ‘Yesterday, or Centuries before’?_
> 
> _The Feet, mechanical, go round -  
>  A Wooden way  
> Of Ground, or Air, or Ought -  
> Regardless grown,  
> A Quartz contentment, like a stone -_
> 
> _This is the Hour of Lead -  
>  Remembered, if outlived,  
> As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow -  
> First - Chill - then Stupor - then the letting go -_

The Avengers find each other in the silence Bucky leaves behind.

His rifle rests among the dry leaves. They’re dusty. The dust Buck vanished into, moments ago. Moments ago? Centuries? Steve’s brain feels like it’s falling. Frozen. Last time Bucky left him, he didn’t wake up for seventy years. But this can’t be like last time.

Steve runs his fingers through dust, cups dust in his hand. It’s not Bucky. There’s nothing of Bucky in it. But there must be some way to, to make it be Bucky again, to go after Thanos and _make_ him bring him back, because he did this. Right? He.

Did this. Half the universe. That’s what he wanted, and now —

There’s another patch of dust next to Vision’s lifeless body. Steve doesn’t know how he gets there, doesn’t think he makes it fully upright. Wanda’s supposed to be here. He kneels, but his legs are trembling, and that’s Natasha coming running out of the woods, Natasha stopping short as if from a bullet to the gut, and he. He has no control of his body, lands hard on his ass in the dirt. Bucky’s gone and _Bucky’s gone_ and Bucky’s gone and he’ll jump off the train if he has to, he’ll come back and rappel down the cliff, he’s going back for the body, even if that’s all it is, because Bucky _can’t_ vanish without a trace this time, not this time, he’s going after the body —

“What is this,” says someone. “What the hell is happening.” It’s Rhodey. Steve knows him; it’s Rhodey. But his mind is a train’s wheels screaming on the tracks.

They’re all looking at him. He’s supposed to say something. He’s supposed to know the answer to the question. Was there a question?

“Oh God,” he says, and that’s no answer at all.

\---

It’s Natasha who takes charge.

Steve remembers that, later, once his thoughts are a little more than tattered fragments on the wind. It’s Natasha who takes charge, and Natasha doesn’t like taking charge, not like this; she’ll boss you around all day behind the scenes but she doesn’t want eyes on her, doesn’t want the mantle of authority.

“Thor,” she says, in a voice that doesn’t shake. “Report.”

“I attempted to kill Thanos,” says Thor. “I failed. He had the final stone. He snapped his fingers. I asked him what he did. He disappeared.” He swallows. There’s something disconcerting about his eyes. “Barnes emerged from the woods and disintegrated into dust. Maximoff disintegrated into dust.”

“And Groot,” says the raccoon. Does Steve remember there being a talking raccoon?

Natasha swallows. Her face is impassive. “Other losses to report?”

“I can’t find Sam,” says Rhodey. “We were thrown into the trees together. But I can’t find him. I —”

“Bruce,” interrupts Natasha. “Help Rhodey look for Sam. Thor — assess the situation on the battlefield. You —” She gestures vaguely at the raccoon. “You go with him. Whatever you are.”

“Rabbit,” supplies Thor.

“I’m Rocket,” says the raccoon.

“Right,” says Natasha. “Just — see if you can find T’Challa down there, see what he knows. Report back. The rest of us —”

“T’Challa,” says another voice. Okoye. She’s been hovering at the margins of the clearing. Her voice shakes the way Steve’s lungs are shaking. “T’Challa is. My king is. My king is gone too.”

There’s a moment of stricken silence. Then Natasha says, “We need to get up to the lab. Look for Shuri. Steve, you’re with me. Okoye —”

“I am with you,” says Okoye.

They shouldn’t leave Vision’s body lying here alone. Even if it isn’t quite a body like other bodies. That gives Steve a task, a comprehensible one: he scoops it up, cradles it to his chest. The others are dispersing to their assignments. Okoye and Natasha are staring at him with wide, shell-shocked eyes.

Natasha’s still holding her hand over her belly as if she’s hurt. Steve says, “Are you hurt.”

They’re the first words he’s said in what feels like a century. Natasha looks at him as if stricken. Then she starts laughing. She drops her hand. It isn’t bloody. She says, halfway hysterical, “No.”

\---

There’s a dead Dora Milaje up in the lab. In the rubble by the broken window, they find Shuri.

A broken slice of glass is half buried in her side. Her orange dress is stained red with blood. Natasha gasps, but Okoye flies forward, drops to her knees at Shuri’s side.

“Little weaver,” she says, her voice breaking. “Little weaver, you are not gone too. No. No. Please —”

Shuri’s eyes flutter open. They have the hazy look of a soldier in pain. “I put — a kimoyo bead in it,” she mumbles. “Don’t be dramatic, Okoye. You haven’t called me bird names in years.”

Steve sees the relief hit Okoye like a physical blow. She’s crying then, tracing Shuri’s face with her hands, and Shuri says, weakly, clearly mustering her last reserves of brattiness, “Stop that. I still need treatment. Take me to my medical ward, and I’ll tell you what to do.”

Thor returns from the battlefield with grim news. Thanos has made good on his promise; half the Wakandan forces are gone. Half the Border Tribe, half the Jabari, half the Dora Milaje. The invading army, at least, has vanished without a trace: Thanos’s twisted gift to those of them that remain.

Banner and Rhodey arrive moments later, sadness dragging heavy on their limbs.

“Nothing but dust,” says Rhodey, “and a broken piece of wing.”

Sam is gone too.

Thor brings two more people with him: the Queen Mother Ramonda, and M’Baku, of the Jabari Tribe. He has a line of blood down the side of his face. He looms even over Steve and Thor. He stands in silence, watching.

When Ramonda emerges from her daughter’s surgical ward, her face is set. She looks directly at M’Baku.

“My son is gone,” she says. “My daughter is gravely injured. The nation needs rebuilding. A firm hand. If you wish to challenge for the throne, we will support you.”

M’Baku blinks. Steve recognizes the look on his face, the glassy horror. He knows it too well. It’s easier to focus on the suffering of others; the loss of others. Rather than his own.

Natasha tugs his sleeve. “We should,” she murmurs, and they leave the Wakandans to their grief.

Downstairs, Natasha finds a phone and tries to call Fury. He doesn’t answer. Neither does Maria Hill. Nor Tony, nor Pepper. Every time she dials a fresh number, her hands shake just a little more.

She trades a look with Steve as she raises the phone to her ear for the sixth call. A moment later, her face crumples. Transforms. She sucks in a breath and says, “ _Clint?_ ”

Steve can hear the crackling of Clint’s voice on the other end of the line. Natasha says, “Oh God, oh God, you’re _alive_ —”

Then she goes utterly still. So still, so silent, that Steve can hear Barton’s voice breaking on the other end of the line. _They’re gone, Nat,_ he says. _My family, they’re. I don’t._

_I couldn’t get anyone on the phone. The school bus, it. They went off a bridge._

_They’re all gone._

\---

“I need vodka,” says Nat. “I need — Tony to be here to make a horrible joke.”

 _I need Clint,_ she doesn’t say. _I need Bucky I need Wanda I need Vision I need T’Challa I need Sam._

Tony at least could feasibly still be alive.

“If the infinity stones could do it,” says Rhodey, “they could undo it.”

“And what?” Banner demands. “How exactly are we supposed to go after a guy who’s made himself more powerful than God to get them back?”

“So you’re saying we should just live with this,” Rhodey fires back.

“I’m not saying —”

“Guys,” says Natasha. “Stop.”

She sounds exhausted almost beyond speech. Steve has enough awareness, at least, to notice that.

He feels like he’s been scooped out of his own skull with a spoon. Inside his head is hollow, empty. Bucky’s absence throbs like an open wound. It’s the black hole at the center of his awareness. He can’t look at it. Can’t touch it.

“Cap,” says Rhodey, “what do you think —”

“I _said,_ ” Natasha grits, “ _stop._ ”

It takes Steve a moment to remember Cap means him. He’s feels a rush of gratitude to Natasha, followed by awkwardness, because Rhodey and Banner still have their eyes on him. Relief comes, unexpectedly, from Thor. “It would be unwise to confront Thanos again without the element of surprise. Reconnaissance is necessary.”

“And how are we supposed to accomplish that, huh?”

Rhodey, Steve thinks, is someone who copes with tragedy through action. Steve is the same way. He thought he was the same way. He doesn’t know.

“Rabbit’s companions attempted to intercept Thanos earlier on his quest for the stones,” Thor supplies. “They may have information, if any of them yet live.”

It transpires that while Thor and Rocket know where their comrades were last headed, they have no idea where they are now. Thor thinks they should check Knowhere; Rocket thinks that Thanos’s possession of the stone is evidence enough that the mission to the Collector was a failure. This is what Steve gathers, anyway. He’s having a hard time focusing on the back and forth.

He’s about given up on this round of debate when Okoye comes skidding in the door. She looks breathless. There's still blood on her armor. She’s holding a kimoyo bead, and above it hovers a projection of Pepper’s crying, smiling face.

Relief lances through Steve’s shell of numbness, warm and dangerous. He feels a smile crack the frozen clay of his face. “Pepper,” he says.

“I’m so glad to see you,” she hiccups. “I haven’t heard from Tony — I don’t know —”

They cluster together so she can look at them all at once, and Steve winds up in the middle of an ungainly heap. Okoye’s shoulder leans back solid against his; she holds out her arm to give Pepper the widest view she can.

“Pepper,” Nat says from behind Steve’s left ear. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah,” says Pepper. She looks disheveled; there’s a streak of dust on her cheek. “We were driving, but we’re okay. Happy and I both.”

“Good,” says Steve. “That’s good.”

“Listen,” she continues. “Fury and Maria are gone. So is half the government. I’ve got Clint and Lang coming in to headquarters, but there have already been at least a dozen prison breakouts we know of. The nation’s infrastructure is in chaos. So is FEMA. I have authorization from Senator Bevell to coordinate an emergency response team, and I’m negotiating with them to let us go international, but we’re severely undermanned. Even so, with Tony’s tech, we can do a lot, so until he gets back —”

She cuts herself off there. No one wants to say it: _If._

“We’ll be there,” says Nat, into the silence. Steve feels her body shift as she turns to look at Okoye. “How many of us do you need?”

Okoye stiffens, then bows her head slightly. “Go. Wakanda can look after herself.”

Steve says, “I’ll stay.”

“Steve.” Pepper’s voice is gentle. “Bevell’s already got pardons in the pipeline. For all of you. You’re welcome home.”

“I —” says Steve.

He doesn’t want to go.

It’s nothing to do with fear. It’s not even guilt, really, though he’s the one who brought this battle here; the destruction in Wakanda is his fault. It’s —

He can’t leave Bucky. He can’t leave Bucky now.

“I’ll stay,” he says again. He offers Pepper a smile, the best he can manage. “This is home now, too.”

\---

They disperse to their beds after hours of conversation and the barest beginnings of a plan. In the morning, Thor and Rocket will depart in search of Tony and the remaining Guardians of the Galaxy. Natasha, Bruce, and Rhodey will return to New York; Steve keeps having to blink at that, thinking their force should be larger. Sam — it’s Sam he keeps forgetting, Sam’s loss he hasn’t even processed on top of everything else. The knowledge twists in his chest like a knife.

Steve will stay in Wakanda, and help rebuild.

It’s selfish; he knows it is. For all that they were the center of the battle, Wakanda took less damage than the US did. Their technology is smarter, less susceptible to user error, more strategically deployed. The nation is in a paroxysm of grief, yes, but so is the whole world, the whole — universe — and Steve’s mind staggers back from the thought, gives in.

He’s staying in Wakanda anyway. He’s staying because he left Bucky once, when he thought hope was gone, and he never means to do it again.

He hesitates in the door of his and Bucky’s room. Bucky’s room, really, but by now it’s almost equally theirs. Still, it’s Bucky’s clothes in a heap on the bathroom floor, Bucky’s hairbrush on the nightstand, and Steve stands there paralyzed for what might be an hour before there’s a soft noise behind him and then Natasha, grabbing his hand and tugging.

At the door of her room, he protests, “Bruce —” but she shakes her head and puts her finger on his lips. “Not now,” she says, which could mean a thousand things, but her bed is empty.

When she releases him in the middle of the carpet, he stands there swaying, uncertain. Nat puts her hands on her hips. “I can manhandle you into the shower if you want.”

Steve starts, and stumbles. “No, that’s — no, that’s all right.”

He almost melts down over the smell of her shampoo — adopted by both Bucky and Sam, Bucky because he’s apparently discerning about these things and Sam because _you realize we’re living out of a plane in the middle of the desert, right, Steve? I don’t know how she gets this shit, but it’s better than scrubbing myself with sand —_

He puts his hands over his face. He takes deep breaths. He finishes his shower.

He’s drifting on the edges of awareness by the time Natasha emerges from hers, too exhausted to mentally process the day; his body is telling him to sleep, sleep for days, sleep now. Nat grabs his hand and slides into bed next to him and pulls him in, curling around him, the big spoon to his comically oversized little. He mutters some non-words of protest, and Natasha says something in Russian, hair brushing against the back of Steve’s neck, and he gives it up, and yields himself over to sleep.

\---

They leave at first light.

The sky is a dazzling tapestry, gold-scalloped clouds in a powder-blue dome. The birds are singing, more loudly than they should be this time of year — Bucky taught him that. Half of them are gone, too, but the air isn’t eerily silent; it’s ringing with song. It echoes off the walls of gleaming buildings and down the empty city streets.

Everything looks pure and clean. Untouched. The air smells like flowers and far-off rain.

None of them cry. Steve clasps each of his friends’ hands, hard, as they board the jet, and each grip tears the gulf of grief deeper inside him. He doesn’t want to sanction this new dawn with formalities; he doesn’t want to consent for his world to rewrite itself, again. He bottles every howling piece of his heart, bears down on the stopper. Natasha releases his hand, pulls away. Then she hesitates, turns back around, and pulls him into a tight hug.

“We _will survive this,_ ” she hisses in his ear. “You hear me? We will. Don’t —”

 _Don’t._ She leaves it at that.

Her embrace leaves his skin twanging like a plucked wire; the air bears the breath of reality, and it’s too close, too near. He feels laid bare. Bucky’s face swims in his vision like vertigo, in DC, Bucharest, on that train, and he wants to plummet after it, to grip that warm and living arm, to pull Bucky hard against his chest like he never could, and it wouldn’t matter if they were still falling, it wouldn’t matter —

He blinks. “I won’t,” he says.

Natasha gives him a look like she sees through every inch of his bullshit. She gets on the plane, and a moment later it’s cloaking, shimmering into nothing.

“We’ll be in touch,” says Steve, to empty air.

The plaza is empty. Thor and Rocket left first; the Wakandans are already busy at their tasks. The birds keep singing.

“I hear that’s what they do after an eclipse,” says a voice from the doorway.

It’s Okoye. She’s leaning on her spear. It gleams, like everything else, in the morning sun.

“The birds,” she elaborates. “After a solar eclipse — they sing like it’s the first day of spring. Because the world has ended, and then it hasn’t again, and singing is the only answer they know.”

And what do you do when your world has ended, and returned, only to end again?

“Give me something to do,” says Steve, and he feels the glass in his heart begin to break. His eyes are wet. The birds keep singing. “For the love of — please give me something to do.”

Okoye closes her eyes and bows her head, and for a moment he thinks she’s averting her gaze from his grief, before he remembers: she shares it. She shares it, and holds it with him, and swallows it down.

When she meets his eyes again, hers are fierce and dry. “Come with me,” she says. “There is much for us to begin.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I did make it [rebloggable on Tumblr](https://gravelghosts.tumblr.com/post/180938456544/mcu-fic-after-the-dust-stevebucky-gen-3k), if y'all are still doing that thing. <3


End file.
